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By Sandjar Kozubaev 

Once in a lifetime

Earlier last year, I travelled to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, which is my hometown. My trips home are usually full of emotion because they happen so rarely, but this time was truly special. My baby sister was getting married. Needless to say, my whole stay was an emotional rollercoaster: tears, laughs, reunions and even a random food poisoning to top it off.

Weddings are a special occasion in any culture but in traditional societies, they are even more special. In many ways, they are the cornerstone of culture, rich with rituals, stories and artifacts. A wedding is also a carefully orchestrated multi-day event. In a developing country, it would seem that it should be a  logistical nightmare to put together, but it isn't. Almost every ritual has been performed for centuries so at every wedding, behind the apparent chaos there is a well-established system of relationships, transactions and mechanisms. On the surface it looks spontaneous, but behind the scenes it's like clockwork. After it was all over, I started to wonder if we can learn something about market mechanisms from traditional communities. Weddings might be the best place to look for insights.

A financial market without a bank

I won't go into the details of a traditional Uzbek wedding, but one of the main challenges of a wedding is the financial resources it takes to marry off children, which traditionally has been the parents' responsibility. Relative to the disposable income of any family, the cost of a wedding is prohibitive. Many parents start saving up for the special day as soon as the child is born, especially if it's a girl. In a developed economy, you have some options. You can save up more cash by reducing your consumption or you can take a loan from a bank. But these options are usually not available in the developing world. Moreover, people tend to get married earlier so they are not at their peak level of productivity to offer any financial help to the parents. This is where the community steps in.

Essentially, the community around the family that hosts the wedding acts like a local bank. According to the tradition, family members and friends bring monetary gifts to the head of the household who holds the wedding. It's like any other wedding gift except that both parties know that it has “strings” attached. Both parties fully expect that this financial gift needs to be returned when it's the gift giver's turn to host a wedding. At that time, the gift is returned fully and in some cases with additional "interest" as a sign of appreciation and respect for the original gift. The system is extremely simple; there are no contracts, no promises and relatively small risks. It is self-sustaining, and this “market” continues to function without any outside regulation. Economic necessity created a financial service that could hardly exist in a classic market setting. In fact, one could argue that this is the purest form of a market.

Food for rent

Another beautiful tradition in Uzbek culture is the morning palov (aka pilaf, plov, osh), which is a rice dish that is served on special occasions. It is simply delicious! The occasion for a palov can be anything from a new birth, wedding, death, or any other culturally significant event. The host of the household invites his friends and family to celebrate the occasion with a meal and a prayer in the morning. A typical palov function hosts 200 to 300 people although size can vary. Again, the logistics of hosting such a function is quite challenging. There are restaurants that specialize exclusively in such events.

I want to explain how tables are set at these events, because it’s important in this context. Instead of serving appetizers, meals and deserts in sequence like it's done in the West, everything is set on the table at once. The more food on the table the better. The only food that's not served right away is the actual palov. It's an enormous amount of food for the host to purchase and potentially waste.

What used to happen is that the hosts would buy the provisions and collect the leftovers at the end of the event. It works well with non-perishable foods like dried fruit or candies, but fresh fruits and vegetables would often be wasted because there was just too much. It becomes even more difficult in the winter when fruits command a premium price. These conditions set a stage for a service that I have not seen before at these events - fruits and snacks for rent. It works exactly like it sounds. You rent the fruits and snacks for 3-4 hours and at a specific price; plus you pay a fee for any food that ends up being consumed during the function. All food is collected at the end of the function, everything is counted and to determine the final fee. It's an extremely efficient model that saves money both for the host and provides an extra revenue source for the vendor who will later sell the fruits on the market.

Market design at work

You may have heard of the work of Lloyd Shapley, an economist at UCLA, and Al Roth, of Harvard University. Their pioneering work in market design recently earned them a Nobel Prize in economics. Here is an excellent piece by Joshua Gans explaining the nature of this work. Roth and Shapley's research shows how one can apply simple principles to match participants in markets where it's very difficult to do (e.g. singles looking to get married) or where price mechanisms cannot be used for various reasons. This is called market design and it works based on the following four principles:

• Market thickness - lots of buyers and sellers



• Lack of congestion - transaction speed is efficient relative to its volume (no long waits)


• Market safety - everyone has an incentive to play a fair game


• Avoidance of “repugnance” - non-interference of other social and moral values that disrupt the functioning of the market

What the economists have shown is that if you can meet those four principles, you can match market participants even in the most complex situations. It's a brilliant concept and it works in real life. No wonder it caught the attention of the Nobel Prize committee.

Thinking back to the market examples from my sister's wedding, I wonder if traditional societies can help us apply market design principles more effectively. Can we leverage traditional institutions and relationships to design better services? Creating new institutions might be needed in completely new markets, say like organ transplantation. However, it may be easier to design new services within existing social structures, especially when we can use technology. What if we could have a hyper-local banking system that was completely peer-to-peer? What if we could significantly reduce our consumption of resources if we shared more often? Traditional communities develop elegant solutions out of necessity. People rely on each other because it's their best option. We can use the same approach to design more resilient markets and communities. After all, we have the longevity of culture, and the scalability of technology on our side.

* * *

Sandjar Kozubaev is an economist and design strategist at InReality, a strategy, design and solutions management firm based in Atlanta, GA. He consults clients on designing meaningful customer experiences and building lasting business models. He is also the author of Layered Thinker, a visual blog on critical thinking and strategic foresight. Follow Sandjar on Twitter. 

The auto industry is one of the most innovative industries worldwide. At the same time, there’s a good chance you’re driving a fossil fuel-powered car just like your grandfather did decades ago. There are many reasons for this seeming contradiction, but the fact is that the auto industry wants to change this reality and is constantly looking for alternatives that are cleaner, cheaper and eventually better, from electrification to biofuels. The latest attempt concerns maybe the most available resource of all – air.

The French car manufacturer Peugeot Citroen has just announcet that it is working on a new kind of hybrid car that uses a conventional internal combustion engine and compressed air for motive power. “Intended for smaller B- and C-segment vehicles with output of up to 110 horsepower, it's designed to operate in three modes: internal combustion, compressed air only or a combination of the two,” Kbb.com reported.

The idea of using compressed air to power cars is anything but new, and already in 19^th century you had mine locomotives and trams in some cities using compressed air. The way compressed-air engines work hasn’t changed much since then, explains Michael Coren on Co.Exist, “Fresh air is pumped into a chamber under high pressure, and then released into 'combustion' chambers where the air forces down pistons and turns the wheels.”

So why didn’t it work? After all, compressed air seems to have many advantages, from low price to zero tailpipe emissions (although not everyone seem to agree it’s as clean an option as it appears). Apparently, compressed air has a relatively low energy density and therefore it’s unlikely to provide enough range or speed to appeal to the masses. “Compressed air does not contain much energy–that’s the killer,” Larry Rinek, senior research analyst for automotive technologies at consultancy Frost & Sullivan told MIT Technology Review. “This is more a nice garage project for a Popular Science subscriber.”

Some companies, including Toyota, MDI and Tata begged to differ and tried to develop improved models, but without much success. Now Peugeot is giving it a shot with its new "Hybrid Air" concept that it believes to be somewhat different and better. The planned car's main source of power remains an internal combustion engine powered by gasoline, explains Antony Ingram on Green Car Reports. “But instead of using batteries to supply additional power, or zero-emissions driving when needed,” he adds, “the concept instead uses a compressed air tank mounted in the central transmission tunnel to turn a hydraulic motor.”

When you run this car on highways, it will use the internal combustion engine alone. In cities the engine allows up to 80 percent driving on compressed air with an impressive fuel economy of 81 miles per gallon and only emits just 110 grams of carbon dioxide per mile. The combined economy can reach up to 117 mpg. "This breakthrough technology ... represents a key step towards the two litre per hundred kilometre car by 2020," Peugeot Citroen chief executive Philippe Varin said at a press conference unveiling a series of new technologies.

The new system is intended for smaller and midsized cars and one of its advantages is that it requires only minimal redesign work from Peugeot on a conventional platform like the Citroen C3 or Peugeot 208. Other important advantages include a 45 percent savings in relative fuel usage and up to a 90 percent increase in range compared to a similar vehicle with only an internal combustion engine. Peugeot didn’t say anything about the price yet but it does make sense that the company will also be able to offer a competitive price given the lack of need of an expensive battery pack.

Even if we assume that Peugeot successfully manages to overcome the engineering challenges that prevented compressed-air cars from becoming a serious alternative over the years, the main question is whether consumers will be likely to accept it. I believe that it does have a chance, although probably more in Asia and Europe than in North America given that this system is not a good fit for big cars.

Eventually it all comes down to price and convenience. If these cars manage to combine the advantages of a hybrid car (infrastructure and range are not an issue), the impressive fuel economy of electric cars and significant cost savings, then compressed air might be the next big thing in the auto industry.

Still, before we start daydreaming about how air will be our savior when it comes to private transportation, let’s not forget that we probably need couple of more breakthroughs before we see it becoming the fuel of choice. Until then, we’ll probably keep driving just like grandpa.

[Image credit: PSA Peugeot Citroen]

Raz Godelnik is the co-founder of Eco-Libris and an adjunct faculty at the University of Delaware’s Business School, CUNY SPS and Parsons The New School for Design, teaching courses in green business, sustainable design and new product development. You can follow Raz on Twitter.

Do you need to hop a private jet to Las Vegas, stay in someone’s penthouse crib and borrow that perfect Gucci bag for the weekend? The rise of the sharing economy has spread far beyond AirBnB and ThredUp. Luxury goods and services have emerged within the collaborative consumption movement in the past few years, and the chances are high they will stay around for a long time.

While many are still reticent to display conspicuous consumption even four years after the nadir of the global financial crisis, interest in accessing them is growing. Increased convenience is helping to drive the trend - among fashionistas who live far from high-end stores in the larger metropolitan areas. Various services covering transportation and accommodation, as well as clothing and accessories, offer a treasure trove of luxurious and fashion-forward, if not temporary, goods and services.

So start planning that getaway weekend on Social Flights. According to the site, over 15,000 users have access to 600 private aircraft that have room for a few more people in a Cessna or even a helicopter. The service claims it can schedule last minute trips without the hassle of dealing with the commercial airlines for about the same price. Some of the participating air carriers sound as if they would be in a novel, such as American Business Airways or HarmonyAir. Once they land, the passengers could hop into a shared town car service such as Uber or Exotic Car Share. Alas, one luxury car sharing service, HiGear, shut down after a criminal ring infiltrated the company, bypassed background checks and stole some cars; since then the company’s assets were sold to Rent2Buy. Of course, if a trip requires a water route, Voyage Yacht Share is a membership service that provides access to luxury yachts and marinas 28 days a year.

Once you arrive, you'll need a place to crash, but you can skip Couchsurfing this round. If you hopped the pond from London to New York or vice versa, OneFineStay offers flats, penthouses or brownstones in both cities’ exclusive neighborhoods, which now include the East End and Brooklyn. Exclusive Exchanges, with property owners spread from Whistler to Marrakech, has more of a global presence, offering villas or a pad that should be in Dwell or Architectural Digest. Should you need some booze and have plenty of time to make it, you can even score a few rows of grapes in Napa and become involved in the winemaking process, thanks to The Napa Valley Reserve.

Once your travel itinerary and accommodations are sorted, you have got to look presentable. Refashioner is a “curated shopping community” offering everything from outerwear to suits to lingerie and swimwear (the last two are with tags, i.e., unworn, of course) as well as a bevy of shoes and accessories from which members can choose. Bag Borrow or Steal focuses more on the accessories side, with jewelry and designer handbags leading the offerings. Guys should not feel left out: Tie Society boasts a large collection of neckwear.

Not all of the high end luxury goods sharing services will survive--as with any new market trend, there will be a shakeout as what was once a dismissed as a fad becomes a commodity. And mind you, it is not simply a matter of signing up and driving that Ferrari the next day to that deluxe apartment in the sky--you most likely will be vetted. Yet, the brilliance of these sharing services is that more folks making higher incomes are becoming aware of the impact that their consumption has on people and the environment. And for the rest of us, sometimes a little splurge, as in a Fendi handbag for that local fundraising gala or a quick weekend away to Vegas for a friend’s or spouse’s birthday, is a fab way to experience the good life without the massive budget. The champagne life is possible . . . on a microbrew budget.

Leon Kaye, based in Fresno, California, is a sustainability consultant and the editor of GreenGoPost.com. He also contributes to Guardian Sustainable Business; his work has also appeared on Sustainable Brands, Inhabitat and Earth911. You can follow Leon and ask him questions on Twitter or Instagram (greengopost). He will explore children’s health issues in India next month with the International Reporting Project.

[Image credit: SocialFlights.com]

In this interview, John Viera, the Global Director of Sustainability and Vehicle Environmental Matters at Ford Motor Company, describes the Company’s innovative Sustainable Materials Strategy. Viera explains that the Strategy is oriented toward vehicles having less of an impact on the planet. Among additional trajectories, the Sustainable Materials Strategy diverts and transforms post-consumer and post-industrial waste otherwise destined for the landfill into source materials for new vehicle components.

To illustrate, Viera explains that used carpet can be salvaged from buildings and reprocessed into new engine components. Waste denim can be transformed into new vehicle carpet padding for increased soundproofing and interior comfort. Viera suggests that it is highly profitable to implement Sustainable Materials Strategy innovations. Viera also asserts that the diversion of post-consumer and post-industrial waste is an important approach toward reducing the use of our world's limited natural resources. Overall, the Sustainable Materials Strategy sponsors innovation and sustainability, refines the manufacturing process and promotes new technologies.

John Viera is the Global Director, Sustainability and Vehicle Environmental Matters for Ford Motor Company, a position he has held since January 2007.

John Viera is responsible for developing global sustainable business plans and policies, interfacing with global regulatory bodies, reporting externally on the company's environmental and social performance, and leading the company's engagement and partnerships with non-government organizations (NGOs) and other key stakeholders.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_a0f4XsnmQ

____________________

Special thanks to Sustainable Brands http://SustainableBrands.com

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With home energy efficiency retrofits still going strong and proving to be a lucrative business, opportunities for fraud arise as in any sector. And yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission fined a home insulation marketer $350,000 for making unsubstantiated claims about the products he and his companies had made to consumers. The U.S. Department of Justice won the order on the merit of the FTC’s case without having to to go to trial.

Edward Sumpolec of Palm Bay, FL, who conducted business under three different entities, was found in violation of an FTC rule that requires sellers to provide an accurate R-value, the measure of a material’s resistance to heat flow, on their products. According to the FTC, the R-value is supposed to give consumers accurate information about the correct level of insulation needed for their homes--the higher the R-value, the higher the insulating power. Sumpolec, however, had sold products such as “R-100 paint,” and other insulating products that promised to reduce roof temperatures by as much as 95 degrees and save up to 60 percent on energy bills.

According to the FTC, Sumpolec lacked any “reasonable basis” for such cost-saving claims, did not retain any material records for the required amount of time and sold products to customers without including accurate fact sheets about such products’ performance. A local commercial still posted on YouTube touts energy efficiency amongst the various products Sumpolec sold with a warning for customers “not to scrimp and save on energy and a buck here and there.” A quick point: a cursory search at a local Home Depot or on the retailer’s web site reveals that the most energy efficient insulation has an R-value between 49 and 60.

Sumpolec was hardly alone in making false claims about energy efficient building products. Meyer Enterprises was ordered by an Illinois federal court to pay $155,000 for selling an insulation barrier with the claim that it had an R-value almost 4 times of its actual performance. Environmate of Alabama sold a similar product that had an R-value half of what the company had disclosed to customers.

And so we have an easy lesson here: consumers have got to learn the jargon if they participate in any program such as the the Home Star Act of 2010 or are vetting local contractors. And any business owner too dismissive about compliance may want to take notes on Sumpolec’s fate--he has thirty days to pay that fine and is now subjected to a bevy of documentation requirements.

Leon Kaye, based in Fresno, California, is a sustainability consultant and the editor of GreenGoPost.com. He also contributes to Guardian Sustainable Business; his work has also appeared on Sustainable Brands, Inhabitat and Earth911. You can follow Leon and ask him questions on Twitter or Instagram (greengopost). He will explore children’s health issues in India next month with the International Reporting Project.

[Image credit: Lowe's]

IBM recently announced three public school initiatives as part of their Smarter Planet program which is now five years old. The districts involved are: Palm Beach Country (SDPBC) in Florida, Portland Public Schools (PPS) in Oregon, and Clark County School District (CCSD) in Nevada.

Through the use of IBM software and analytics, the schools are able to monitor and manage their physical assets more effectively, which results in reduced operating costs, increased returns on invested capital and reduced operating costs, leaving more precious resources available for their core educational missions.

With more than 95 percent of all school districts across the US facing budget cuts, there could not be a better time to bring this combination of technology and know-how to bear on minimizing the peripheral costs associated with running an educational system.

Here are a few examples of the kind of things that have been done.
In Palm Beach County, the school district implemented IBM’s TRIRIGA real estate management system to help manage the operation of a leasing program, so that they can capitalize on making unused facilities available during off-hours. Since adapting this system, leasing revenues have increased by $4.5 million.

In Portland, the same software is being used to prioritize modernization efforts in a district where the average building age is 70 years old. It also helps them to perform smart, predictive maintenance procedures. As Ben Franklin so astutely pointed out, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The smart building software has helped the district identify problems quickly in their 81 buildings and has reduced facilities costs by 15% while increasing the speed of modernization by 46 percent.

Clark County Nevada is the fifth largest school district in the country with 36 million square feet of building space, covering 8000 square miles. The use of IBM’s Maximo software has helped the district stay on top of some 100,000 maintenance work orders per year and has prevented major issues that would have otherwise forced some schools to close.

Meanwhile, at the college level, Tulane University’s School of Architecture, working with IBM and Johnson Controls is transforming its historic building into an energy-efficient “living laboratory” that collects real-time sensor data throughout the building to drive higher energy efficiency, by simply, as Charles McMahon, Tulane’s CTO puts it, “by listening to what the building has to say.”
And at the City University of NY (CUNY), IBM software allows facility staff to track performance across buildings and against simulation models to see the impact of past renovations and to plan future ones. This has helped the city in its effort to shave 30% off of its municipal carbon footprint by 2017.

[Image credit: IBM Curiosity Shop: Flick Creative Commons]

RP Siegel, PE, is an inventor, consultant and author. He co-wrote the eco-thriller Vapor Trails, the first in a series covering the human side of various sustainability issues including energy, food, and water in an exciting and entertaining format. Now available on Kindle.
Follow RP Siegel on Twitter.

By Nellie Stadtherr

My recent post, Healthy Humanitarian? Get Hungry For Fair Trade, elicited a comment that got me thinking. In reference to the potentially negative consequences from the quinoa trend, one reader responded “The trouble here is that many consumers are completely detached from their food sources…” I agree wholeheartedly.

A few summers ago I was interning in Indonesia with Mercy Corps. During a tour of the slums of Northern Jakarta,  one of our local Program Managers warned me to never eat the food from the street vendors. “They add borax to the noodles,” he explained. “It helps them stay fresh throughout the day and look whiter, which is more appetizing.” I was horrified. Especially when I realized that these noodles were most locals’ standard lunch. I could only imagine the damage that must do!

Fast forward to fall, 2012. Enjoying an afternoon of munching an organic apple while reading Women’s Health Magazine to find an article profiling the hidden toxic ingredients in the food commonly found in American grocery stores. According to the author, Gretchen Voss, mislabeled food containing drugs, chemicals, and unrevealed ingredients find their way into our grocery shelves (and our pantries!), making up to seven percent of US food supply.

This scary and disgusting phenomenon is known as “food fraud.” In addition to the Women’s Health article, food fraud has been the topic of many recent media outlets, including NBC, CBS, and The Guardian.  The U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP), the nonprofit that created the Food Fraud Database, released a new report on January 23, 2013 showing a 60 percent increase in food fraud cases in the past year. The USP defines food fraud as “a collective term that encompasses the deliberate substitution, addition, tampering or misrepresentation of food, food ingredients or food packaging, or false or misleading statements made about a product for economic gain.”

What I find the most alarming about food fraud is that it seems no product is impervious to its reach. I would not be surprised to discover that Doritos are filled with ingredients Mother Nature didn’t intend us to eat (because that’s exactly what Doritos are). I didn’t blink and eye when news broke that Taco Bell’s “beef” contained less than 35 percent meat. But I was appalled to learn from the USP that potential “ingredients” for milk includes detergent and arsenic-contaminated sodium phosphate; sawdust in tea, coffee, and spices; antibiotics in honey; and tuna that isn’t tuna at all but escolar, which is banned in some countries “due to its high likelihood to cause a special form of food poisoning.”

Hmmm… sounds familiar. The difference is that when I asked my friend in Indonesia how in the world street food vendors thought it was okay to poison people with borax on a daily basis, he simple responded, “They don't know any better. They know it helps them sell more noodles, which means they can feed their own children.” Not that it makes eating borax better, but the intention makes the situation more sad than anything else.

What motivates the global conglomerates that are spiking 30,000 bottles of Worcestershire sauce with carcinogenic food dyes? Profit maximization. Making the cheapest product they can sell in the highest quantity at the highest price, regardless of the serious health implications this can impose. I guess that’s also “sad,” in more of a pathetic, immoral kind of way.

The thing that scares me the most about food fraud is the potential of accidental ingestion of allergens. One of the foods most prone to adulteration is one most of use on a daily basis – olive oil. Our precious EVOO is commonly watered down or cut with soybean or peanut oils. Maybe not that big of a deal if you’re just looking for something to grease your pan. But for the estimated 3 million Americans with peanut allergies, which are often severe and potentially fatal, not knowing what’s in that bottle could be life threatening.

So how can we avoid falling victim to food fraud? How do we stop this epidemic? I think it comes back to the comment about being disconnected from our food sources. Grabbing the items off the shelf without considering their origins has clearly become risky behavior. As consumers, we are the ones who can eliminate food fraud with our purchasing power. If there wasn’t a profit to be made, these products wouldn’t be out there.

Easier said then done, yes. Are we to critically investigate each can of food we purchase? Well….yes and no. The clues are definitely on the packaging and from the source.

Many of us have learned to examine our meat, egg, and dairy labels for terms including “free-range,” “no pesticides,” “no added flavorings,” and “hormone-free.” (Again, kind of sad in a depressing sort of way that we actually have to seek out labels informing of us what unnatural ingredients are NOT in our meat…). We realize that buying organic produce is an option to avoid ingesting pesticides, wax, and chemicals. We can even buy these products directly from the source, visiting our local butcher or farmers market, streamlining the distribution chain.

But what about grains, condiments, and canned food? Most of us can’t visit our local wheat (or quinoa) farm. Most of us don’t make our own ketchup or even have time to soak dry beans. How do we become connected to these types of foods that we’ve come to depend on grocery stores to supply us?

My solution is to purchase products from the brands I trust and take the time to learn about what brands stand for. This is rather easily done by taking the time to evaluate labels and a quick visit to the company’s website.

Let’s take beans for example. Pick up a can of Eden Organics Caribbean Beans and you can immediately tell the food is organic, in a BPA-free can, and contains only, well, real food.  Ingredients read: Organic Black Turtle Beans, Water, Organic Minced Dried Onion, Sea Salt, Organic Paprika Powder, Organic Cayenne Pepper Powder, Organic Cumin Powder, Organic Garlic Powder, Organic Cinnamon Powder, Organic Black Pepper Powder. Their website clearly states their mission and commitment to health and transparency.

Moving further down the aisle one might see a can of Ranch Style Texas Style Beans, another seasoned bean product owned by ConAgra. The brand, which proudly states it’s products “can be found in 97 percent of America’s kitchens,” was sued in 2011 for label fraud.

While the front of the black label doesn’t tell you much beyond the bean’s “Appetite Pleasin’” taste, a spin of the can reveals the longer and less-intuitive ingredient list than Eden Organics’: Pinto beans, water, tomato puree (water, tomato paste), less than 2% of: Blend of Vegetable Oils and Animal Fat (Partially hydrogenated Soybean Oil and/or Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil and Rendered Beef Fat), Salt, Chili Peppers, Sugar, Paprika, Vinegar, Spices, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Natural Flavorings, Soy Lecithin.

It always confuses me when companies have to include an “and/or” clause in their ingredient list… because they aren’t sure what kind of oil they’re using? Hmm. And if some spices are listed, such as paprika, what does the generic “spices” allude to?

I don't think it takes much consideration to determine which of these options is better for you in general and has less likelihood of containing fraudulent ingredients.

As we enter the new, Post-twinkie era, I hope that we can eliminate food fraud not through lawsuits but through more thoughtful purchases. We can become more connected to our food sources, whether it's the farmer, butcher, or brands we can trust from our grocer shelves. We should do this to heal of our bodies, the health of our planet, and the health of our souls.

Are we so hungry that we will allow these profit-hungry conglomerates to continue to poison us? Or can we take the time to savor the taste of purchasing power and support the brands that are committed to something more than money?

Image Credit: Ian Boyd, Flickr

By David Thomas

Chinese cities are experiencing their own version of the London fog of Victorian Britain. Smog in Beijing was at a record high this month, causing factories to be closed until the levels dissipated.

The health risks have convinced Shi Dinghuan, president of the Chinese Renewable Energy Society, to raise his organization's solar targets from the level set in 2011, 21 gigawatts, to 35 gigawatts by 2015. This will provide five times the solar capacity as there was at the end of 2012. “We’ve got more pressure to save energy and reduce emissions as smog worsens due to pollution,” he said.

Solar power is the natural choice for China. Panel prices have dropped by 25 percent in the past year, and there is greater supply than demand at the present time. This is partly due to the U.S. tariff on Chinese panels designed to safeguard their own homegrown panels. Similar policies are likely to be enacted in European nations.

The impact of the tariff on Chinese panel exports has been serious. At first, there was talk of a counter-tax on cheap raw polysilicon, one of the raw materials in solar pv, which is currently imported into China. A reactionary tariff is now looking unlikely, as it would most likely add further pressure on Chinese panel production, which survives due to its margins.

Meanwhile, the twenty million people living in Beijing are suffering the consequences of China’s industries, powered largely by coal and things could get worse before they get better. Earlier statements have indicated that the next generation of Chinese power plants will be 70 percent coal, due to the nation’s massive energy demands.

China is the world leader in terms of total carbon emissions because of its rapid development - not because it is a pollutant state. The ramp up in solar targets indicates that some officials are looking for a solution. The government has also offered 13bn Yuan ($2.1bn) in solar subsidies to encourage the growth of its renewable power industry.

At the end of 2012, two of China’s largest solar manufacturers, LDK Solar and Suntech, experienced a jump in stock price. The recent developments in Beijing will see plenty more business coming their way in the next decade.

[Image credit:Lu Feng, Flickr]

David Thomas writes about cleantech, government policy and energy efficiency for The Eco Experts. You can speak to him @theecoexperts

A recent article in the journal Nature alleges cats are responsible for killing billions of animals in the U.S. annually. In jargonistic terms, “free-range domestic cats,” particularly “un-owned cats,” may kill as many as 3.7 billion birds and 20.7 mammals annually. The article’s findings have spread rapidly across the web, with media outlets including USA Today, Time and Huffington Post running stories about this supposed environmental havoc that felines are having on the natural environment throughout the United States. The study's authors call trap-neuter-release (TNR) programs "potentially harmful to wildlife populations," because they work gradually - leaving birds and wildlife at risk.

Advocates for a more humane approach to controlling feline populations are pushing, if not clawing, back hard. Becky Robinson of Alley Cat Allies slammed the research and criticized the study, pointing out some research was a half-century old. Robinson also highlighted research cited in the study that was the work of a former Smithsonian researcher who lost her job after she was found guilty in Washington, DC of animal cruelty--as in attempting to poison cats in her Northwest DC neighborhood.

It is true that cats kill birds and small rodents: after all that is what they are instinctively wired to do, as anyone who knows how to use YouTube can attest. But reading through the Nature article, I could not help but wonder: did the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and their fellow researchers at the Smithsonian cherry pick data for a conclusion that a crew of bureaucrats had already reached about the impact of cats on wildlife? And why not focus on the some of the larger reasons for the destruction of wildlife and its habitat, as in rampant overdevelopment and environmental degradation? And finally, if our society has such a problem, is it time for business to step up and help combat a problem that has long overwhelmed financially strapped animal non-profits and municipal animal control agencies?

As Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society points out, the three co-authors of the Nature study, Scott R. Loss, Tom Will and Peter P. Marra, came up with numbers that are in reality “informed guesswork.” Guesswork is a kind word: stating that cats kill 6.9 to 20.7 billion mammals annually is not an estimate--it is throwing a bowl of jell-o on a wall to see what will stick.

Even the authors admit that their methodology has shortcomings--I would go so far to say the quality of research was at best marginal and would not pass muster at any respectable university. We know businesses are good at sponsoring studies that result in a predetermined outcome favorable to them; apparently employees of government agencies can do the same. Never mind the cats versus birds argument that has has brought out more than enough hysterics: throwing out provocative numbers to attract the attention of large media outlets is not research--I would call it irresponsible. The blame for loss of wildlife does not lie at kitten paws.

The stubborn fact is that approximately 4 million cats are already euthanized annually, according to the Humane Society of the United States. And while it is true that cats kill their fair share of birds, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) does a fairly good job killing birds for various reasons.

What the study also ignores is the fact that while there is a long way to go to keep domesticated animal population under control, we have come a long way. When it comes to animal control, Alley Cat Allies, the Humane Society and hundreds of small local organizations have made progress with trap, neuter and return (TNR) programs.

Anyone who grew up as recently as the 1970s and 1980s might remember folks showing up in front of a store to give away free puppies or kittens to whoever would take them. Much, not incremental, progress has been made to reduce the number of stray cats and dogs in our communities.

So instead of touting a solution - killing more cats - in search of a problem, let us focus on much larger problems: humans’ encroachment on wildlife among other environmental challenges.

And it is now the time for businesses to step up and raise awareness amongst their employees, customers or stakeholders--and strongly consider animal welfare non-profits for their corporate giving and community grant programs. Many veterinary clinics and non-profits offer a hour or two of low-cost spade and neuter programs a week--clearly more time is needed. And finally, TNR has worked, and such programs cost taxpayers almost nothing: it costs about $100 to euthanize a cat. Forget about the emotional argument--killing more cats will be a government boondoggle. We just need more TNR programs funded, and more influential Bob Barkers reminding everyone to spay and neuter your pets.

Image credit: Luis Mézquita/Unsplash

According to the industry group American Wind Energy Association, the U.S. wind power industry not only had its best year ever in 2012, but exceeded natural gas in the installation of new electric generating capacity. The $25 billion in private investment alone wind energy projects attracted produced over 13,000 megawatts (MW) of new wind power capacity last year--an estimate that exceeds the 10,700 MW that the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) estimated in a recent report. Now the total wind generation capacity in the U.S. stands at over 60,000 MW (60 gigawatts, or GW).

The new milestones will be a shot in the arm for clean energy advocates, who have witnessed a roller coaster of hopes and disappointments the last several years. For example, T. Boone Pickens was once a big proponent of wind power, only to eventually pull his support out of all wind projects in which he had invested. Ironically, much of the new wind power capacity is in the central or prairie states Pickens had envisioned, including Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa.

The newly online wind power projects range from the 210 MW Bison Wind III in North Dakota to the 235 MW Chisholm View wind farm operated by GE in Oklahoma. Illinois witnessed a huge surge in wind power capacity, with such projects now providing over 800 MW annually. Overall, 190 projects in 32 states and Puerto Rico now generate enough electricity to power 15 million homes: or all those in Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada and Ohio combined. That sum of wind power is 42 percent of new power capacity last year; and in fact, renewables were responsible for 55 percent of all new electricity generated in the U.S. last year.

Of course wind power is not completely out of the woods yet. While Congress extended the federal government’s Production Tax Credit past its original expiration of last December 31, the constant drama over the “fiscal cliff” poses uncertainty within the industry since it is a benefit of that federal incentive. Wind installations will continue to face local opposition, as in Vermont, where the state’s junior senator, Bernie Sanders, currently tangles with local officials over a potential moratorium on new wind energy projects.

Overall, however, wind power is on an upward trajectory. Remember that it took the U.S. 25 years to reach 10 GW of wind energy capacity. Between 2008 and 2012, that amount surged from 20 GW to 60 GW. Meanwhile fracking for natural gas continues as that boom will not slow down anytime soon. But despite protests and bureaucratic delays, the industry is in an growth spurt.

The peaks and valleys the wind power sector experiences will continue, but watch for this source of energy to grow in size between environmental concerns over sources such as natural gas and coal; plus fossil fuels continue their overall climb in price as well. Throw in the mix of next-generation technologies, and the future of wind will be bright--and exciting.

Leon Kaye, based in Fresno, California, is a sustainability consultant and the editor of GreenGoPost.com. He also contributes to Guardian Sustainable Business; his work has also appeared on Sustainable Brands, Inhabitat and Earth911. You can follow Leon and ask him questions on Twitter or Instagram (greengopost). He will explore children’s health issues in India next month with the International Reporting Project.

[Image credit: GE]